


Dancing With The Devil

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Series 12 Vignettes [8]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, F/M, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25286935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: In hiding in a half-finished housing development, Yaz thinks about O, and the betrayal she almost made.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Yasmin Khan/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: Series 12 Vignettes [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731406
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Dancing With The Devil

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this tweet](https://twitter.com/sacha_dhawan/status/1245427090171838464?s=20) by Sacha.

“You know what they say - lucky at dice, unlucky in love.”

Yaz can’t stop replaying the words in her mind, over and over. As she hunkers down, wrapped in her coat, in the half-built house that she, Ryan and Graham have shacked up in for the night, she hears the words as though on a loop, remembering too the warm way in which they were delivered, and sees the shy little smile which O had flashed her as he’d spoken them to her a fond, confidential undertone. No, she corrects herself. Not O. The Master. Someone who tried to kill all three of them, and the Doctor for good – bad? – measure. Someone who’d very nearly _succeeded_ in murdering them, and possibly _had_ succeeded in finishing off the Doctor. She doesn’t want to dwell on that thought, but she can’t quite stop herself, despite the pain and anxiety it brings her, leaving her gasping for air in the darkness, trying not to wake Ryan and Graham as she presses a palm to her face and lets tears slip from her eyes silently, no longer ashamed to cry.

The very idea of the Doctor ceasing to exist hurts her; a bone-deep hurt that starts at her chest and radiates down to the tips of her fingers. The thought of the universe without the Doctor is anathema to her; a universe without their adventures together doesn’t feel like a universe worth living in, devoid of excitement and adrenaline and the escape from the mundane that their escapades provides her. She can’t even lie to herself to alleviate her anxiety and her fear, because this isn’t like what she usually thinks of as ‘the time in-between.’ There’s no way to contact the Doctor; no way to drop her a text or give her a call and bring her running. There’s no knowing if she’s even alive or not, although Yaz sincerely hopes she is, and no way to know where she is. And to compound the issue, they’re wanted fugitives, unable to leave this housing development and venture into civilisation, and it’s the fault of the strange, enigmatic man Yaz had so enjoyed flirting with.

The very act of being on the receiving end of male attention is uncommon enough for her. Boys had invariably failed to notice her; their eyes had always slid right past her and settled on her friends, or Sonya, or her many cousins, all of whom had been taller, prettier and far more cool than her. She’d spent her teenage years desperately yearning for a boyfriend so that she could fit in with her mates as they’d swapped stories about their own other halves, and while she’s reached a point now at which she’s glad that she hadn’t spent her adolescence shackled to a boy – metaphorically speaking, at least – male attention is still welcome, and she soaks it up like a sponge, although usually against her better judgement. It’s an uncommon enough experience, though; nobody usually flirts with her, unless it’s to deliberately wheedle or tease. And that had been all that the Master been doing; sowing the seeds of interest, planting the idea of romance, only to make her feel treacherous and guilty when he’d revealed who he really was.

Yaz still remembers how she’d glowed at the party as he’d followed her around with tangible admiration radiating off him like sunlight, clinging to her every word as though she were recounting a great tale of epic proportions and immeasurable value. He’d seemingly thought she was wonderful; he’d seen her as someone exciting and mysterious and well-travelled, and yes, it had been entirely selfish, but Yaz had enjoyed it. She’d enjoyed being seen as something and someone other than boring old Yasmin Khan, married to the job, still living at home; enjoyed someone looking to her as a person of interest, rather than a person of no consequence. Maybe that’s why the Doctor does it, Yaz reasons; maybe that’s why the Time Lady likes keeping them around. Travelling through time and space with them is tangential and unimportant; she just likes having the fam there to gaze at her with admiration as she talks about stars and planets and alien races; just likes having the power trip that comes with being the smartest, most interesting person in the room.

Yaz knows that the thought is churlish, and that her friend couldn’t possibly be so shallow, but she can’t help it. Alone in the darkness, there is no one and nothing to tell her that she’s being unreasonable, and so her anxiety thunders out of control, asking questions that she wouldn’t even entertain in daylight. Hangers-on; is that all they are to the Doctor, she wonders; is that all the Doctor sees them as? She calls them friends to their faces, and yet she hasn’t come back for them; hasn’t contacted them, although the rational part of Yaz reasons that with their phones smashed, they have no way of knowing that.

There’s the lingering, gnawing worry that the Doctor might, in fact, be dead; or much worse, the latent fear that perhaps she doesn’t care about them as much as she professes to, and that thought hurts more, because that means she’s abandoned them by choice. But deep down, Yaz knows that her anxious, panicked thoughts aren’t true; knows that she and the team matter to the Doctor more than they could know. She’d seen the sadness in the Time Lady’s eyes when they’d first met and Yaz had asked her about her family; had understood then that for the Doctor, family is who you choose. And she’d chosen them; constantly chooses them, every day and in every way, and Yaz knew that as long as the Doctor were alive, she’d be fighting to get back to them. She’d saved them on the plane, hadn’t she? That could only be portent of good news.

It still astounds Yaz that of all the people the Doctor could have chosen, she’d picked Yaz as one of her friends. They’d been thrown together entirely by accident due to a weird series of coincidences, and sometimes Yaz wonders what might have happened if this or that had happened instead. What if someone else had taken the call from her superior officer, rather than her? What if she hadn’t been working that night? What if the person who’d taken the call had been someone who didn’t know Ryan; someone who didn’t have that connection to him and his family? Would they have become part of the team instead? Would the team have even existed, or would the Doctor have chosen instead to travel with just one friend, or two, as she’d alluded to having done in the past? She wouldn’t have been travelling alone, that much Yaz is certain of; she’s far too pro-social for that.

Yaz sighs, rolling over to face the half-completed wall and trying to pull her coat all the more tightly around her. She’d loved wearing it, to start with; loved the way it had made her feel like a super-spy in disguise. Loved feeling dressed-up and special; loved the way that O – as he had been then, still playing a role – had looked at her in it, before she’d discovered that it was all a clever mind game. Now she hates the damn thing, but it’s fending off the chill to a degree. She buries her nose in the shimmery fabric, catching the lingering scent of the TARDIS wardrobe, and she feels a deep pang of sadness for all it signifies; happiness, friendship, and adventure, the Doctor leading the way.

Riding the Doctor’s coattails is pleasant enough, she supposes, but she wants _more_. She wants the chance to do more, be more, and the way that O had looked at her… it had made her feel as though she had that potential; as though she could be something more than a follower-on. Made her feel as though _she_ were the Doctor; the one who was so special and exciting and all-knowing; the one who people looked to for guidance. She’d allowed that to go to her head and had played up to his attention, pleased that for once someone was noticing her. Pleased that for once, someone was looking at her as an individual, and not just one of the team, or a uniform, or ‘one of them Pakistani lot from down the hall.’

But of course… he’d never had noble intentions. He’d merely seen her as a means to an end; a way to potentially get back at the Doctor for… well, he had a grudge, that much was evident, although Yaz couldn’t fathom why; couldn’t understand what the Doctor could possibly have done to deserve such a level of loathing or such acts of wanton, murderous destruction. Whatever the Time Lady might have done, Yaz knows now that the Master had been testing her, or so she tries to rationalise it. He’d wanted to see whether she was silly enough and shallow enough to have been tempted by his flirting into betraying the Doctor; to see whether she was so susceptible to a handsome face that she would betray her friend and all she stands for. He’d wanted to know whether she would have been foolish enough to stand with him, and she wonders what would have happened had his cover not been blown in the most mundane of ways.

Would he have been grateful for her support? Or would he have considered her naïve and treasonous; would he have killed her for the perceived slight to the Doctor? He’d shown his murderous streak once already, and undoubtedly such a betrayal would only have enraged him. Not to mention that killing her would have been a blow to the Doctor; although, Yaz reasons, if she had betrayed her, perhaps it would have been a relief for the Time Lady, to find herself rid of someone so untrustworthy. The hypotheticals of it all make Yaz’s head hurt and her stomach clench, and her already-rampant anxiety spins increasingly more out of control; she tries to focus on the present, but the fear of being discovered here is paralysing and she struggles again to catch her breath, trying to keep her hyperventilating quiet so as to avoid waking the others.

Yaz thanks god, not for the first time, that she hadn’t been foolish enough to be entirely captivated by O; thanks god that she hadn’t caved under his attention and made a rash decision that could have doomed them all… or at least doomed them any more completely than they already were. But she still remembers the glow she’d felt to think that such a handsome, intelligent man was interested in her; the pleased little flush she’d felt in the casino as he’d watched her throw the dice. And yet she’d only ever been a pawn to him; only ever been something for him to occupy himself with as he aimed for the bigger, more impressive prize that was the Doctor.

When the Master had revealed who he truly was on the plane, she’d felt – and still feels – the guilt that had rippled through her in the cabin, and the agonised shock that had followed as she’d felt numb with disbelief. She’d flirted with him and enjoyed it; she’d smiled and laughed and tossed her hair and really thought herself in with a chance, only now he was seeking to kill them all and take over the world. He’d gleefully revealed himself to be an enemy of the Doctor, and despite her lack of having carried out anything particularly insidious in his name, Yaz still feels agonies of guilt at having enjoyed his attention. She still feels like a traitor to the Doctor; still feels that this is all somehow her fault. Still feels that she should have tried harder to get in his head, rather than submitting naively to his attentions.

She’d been foolish, and it could have cost them all their lives. She’d been foolish, and now here they are, wanted criminals on the run from the law.

She closes her eyes, a single tear trickling down her cheek.

 _I’m sorry, Doctor,_ she thinks silently to herself. _I’m so, so sorry, and when we find you, I will never let you down again._


End file.
